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Domenico Dolce & Stefano Gabbana

About

the designers

Dolce was born on September 13, 1958, in Polizzi Generosa, and Gabbana was born on November 14, 1962, in Venice. Dolce, who studied fashion design and worked for his family's small clothing factory, grew up in a small Sicilian village, while Gabbana, a trained graphic designer, grew up in Milan.

Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana first met in Milan in 1980 when working as assistants in an atelier in Venice. They began to do freelance design in 1982, when they began doing business together.

In 1985, they showed their first major women’s wear collection in Milan entitling it "Real Women". Their earliest designs consisted of unstructured clothing with complicated systems of fastenings. The collection was practically home-made, with all the family pitching in to help out with the tailoring.

Four years later, they revealed their premiere menswear collection and opened a women’s boutique in Milan.

By 1987, inspired by classic southern Italian cinema of the 40's and 50's, they created a collection marked by romanticism and voluptuousness, the full skirts, ruffled blouses and lace shawls of Cicilian women, met with immediate success. They used religious themes, rosary beads, little black dresses, headscarves, and fishing village baskets to support this theme. Their inspirational figures include Italian actresses Sophia Loren and Anna Magnani.

In 1988, Dolce and Gabbana signed an agreement with the Kashiyama group for distributing their designs in Japan.

Also in 1990, they started designing for the Complice line for the Genny Group in Milan.

In 1991, Madonna popularized their rhinestone-covered bodice.

They have been awarded the Woolmark Award in 1991 and the Best Feminine fragrance of the year in 1993. They are the number one designer of choice in Hollywood. Whitney Houston, actress and singer, recently got her tour costumes all made at Dolce and Gabbana, and of course, she is not waited on by any old shop assistant. Stefano and Domenico fit her personally.

The Private life of Gabbana and Dolce’s affairs became public in 2004, when they officially announced their separation. The company will still stay the same, and they will continue to design together.

the label

Dolce & Gabbana SpA is a high-end designer company owned by Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana. Their first collection launched to international acclaim in 1986, and it wasn’t before knitwear (1987), beachwear (1988), lingerie (1989), and accessories were added. Dolce & Gabbana are very popular for their designs in the Hollywood industry. The company is based in Milan. Its first store in the United States opened in March 1995 in the upscale shopping mecca "the Galleria" in Houston’s fashion district. Since then, a boom in interest in their clothes has called for openings of their boutiques in other major cosmopolitan cities all over the world. Their boutiques have became a symbol of high fashion and couture.

Dolce & Gabbana is organized into two central brands. "D&G" and "Dolce & Gabbana" D&G generally forms the groups more casual lines with cheaper prices. Dolce & Gabbana centralizes on haute couture and espensive price tags. Within each brand is "Beachwear" and separately "Dolce & Gabbana underwear". Earning remarkable financial success (despite the prevalence of fraudulent D&G merchandise), the duo even crossed over into the music world, recording a techno single in 1996 with the words "D&G is love."

The Look

Dolce & Gabbana’s aesthetic is anything but coy: They will gleefully squeeze as much excess as is humanly possible into each showstopping piece - whether a jacket, dress, or suit. Yet they also have a huge sense of irony and whimsy. The spirit of their work is Jean Paul Gaultier. "Dolce & Gabbana’s way with a corset has become emblematic of their love of va-va-voom dressing and their awesome tailoring talents. Many of their designs are adapted from traditional women's clothing from a pre-feminist era, which they glamourize and modernize. They have become one of Italy's most important and successful ready-to-wear companies. Their sales are around $ 500 million per year at the end of the 90's. Their motto for their dresses is "sweet and sharp" and their style is to encompass nostalgic glamour, celebrity appear, unashamed sexiness and New Millennium cool. They now have boutiques in cities all over the world, including Hong Kong, Singapore, Taipai, Seoul, all the European cities and all over the USA.